Toto Wolff admitted the Sprint race at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari was disappointing for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, with neither George Russell nor Lewis Hamilton able to improve on their Qualifying places on Saturday.
Russell started eleventh but slipped to twelfth at the start behind Haas F1 Team’s Mick Schumacher and was only able to gain one place back as Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team’s Sebastian Vettel slid down the order.
Hamilton started thirteenth but fell behind Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll at the start, and although he got the latter back, he could only finish fourteenth, one place worse than he started.
Wolff, the Team Principal at Mercedes, said being stuck in a DRS train at Imola hurt the team badly on Saturday, and they will need to smarten up if they are to obtain the minimum target of points during Sunday’s feature race.
“What we saw today was a car without enough of a performance differential to the midfield cars to make the overtakes,” said Wolff. “If we were running in free air, the picture would be similar to previous races where we moved forward but behind the cars in a DRS train, the car didn’t have enough performance to make progress.
“Point-scoring needs to be the minimum for tomorrow and we know that isn’t anywhere near our expectations, so it’s a humbling experience.”
Wolff says the team understand the problems they have at this stage of the season, but it will be up to everyone within the team to solve them if they want to bring themselves into contention at the front of the field.
“We understand our problems, we have a direction to unlock the potential that is within the car to bring us much closer to the front but at the moment, we don’t have the key,” he said.
“Therefore, you just need to grind away and rely on the science and the physics. The passion and determination to improve is there in every team member.”